Chaotic Return
by bob rulz
Summary: It has been 500 years since Kerrigan and her ravenous Zerg broods were defeated, but now the Zerg have returned. But what's the real truth behind this invasion? A number of military officers are uncovering the truth, but at what cost?


**Prologue: A Not-so-boring Night**

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is an official remake of my previous story, "The Second Zerg War," which was going nowhere at the current pace. So, since I was generally unhappy with it and couldn't figure out where I wanted to go with it exactly, I've decided to start over new. It's generally the same story, but the tone, atmosphere, setting, etc, will be drastically different while the general storyline and characters will remain the same. I'll make more of an attempt to set the atmosphere and flesh it out this time around. I'm going to add some of the little things in life into the story to give it a more realistic feel and atmosphere.

Despite what you may think of from the story below, it's not going to be a simple "Zerg rampaging and killing everything story." Anyway, this takes place in the year 3001, which is about 500 years after the actual game. Kerrigan and the original Zerg broods have been defeated, but now they've returned. It's going to end up much, much more complex than that though. It also begins on Earth, and I'm going to include futuristic versions of many real places, although later I will expand beyond Earth. This Prologue is kind of a warm-up for me…don't worry, things will get going real quick after this. This is essentially my first attempt at a real story (except for the previous version of this one, which, as I said, didn't get far), and I'm planning on it being quite long.

Anyway, have fun reading it, and please give constructive reviews (no one sentence "it's good" or "it sucks" reviews please…tell me WHY it's good or WHY it sucks, and anything that's wrong with it as well).

_October 15, 3001, 2:40 AM_

_Salt Lake City, Intermountain West, Earth_

Oreem Taros drove through the streets of Salt Lake City during the night. This portion of the city had transformed dramatically in the last year. Metal bars were nailed to the doors of old private stores, graffiti littered the walls and streets, and gunshots were heard nearly every night. The paint was nearly gone on all of the structures, making them look bland and gray with the metal bases exposed. He occasionally also saw dark figures, most likely homeless people, wandering the streets. He had to drive through this neighborhood just about every night on his way to the military base.

His headlights provided most of the illumination for the road ahead of him. Ever since the fighting in the city had intensified a few months ago, many of the poorer places in the city had no power. There were lights on the side of the road, but he hadn't seen them lit in weeks. He turned the corner and entered onto the freeway.

As he sped down the freeway, the bright lights of the military base off in the distance slowly became stronger. Just minutes later, he pulled off the freeway and turned onto the street that led to the checkpoint. As he approached the checkpoint, he came to a stop as the infrared scanner scanned his body to confirm his identity. "Identity confirmed. You may proceed," said the computer panel off to his right in a smooth female voice. He drove along the wide road, with the low, flat military base stretching off in either direction in front of him. The walls were smooth, with occasional scars from previous battles, with the orange-and-blue symbol of the rebel organization painted in several places. To either direction, nearer to the invisible shield that protected the base, lay low bunkers halfway underneath the ground. A low cliff lay to his left, where the base rose high above the ground and was defended by a number turrets nearly invisibly mounted into the wall. The ground to his right dropped off to the valley stretching below to the west, while to his east, tall, stark mountains rose above the base. A few soldiers roamed the upward-sloping ground to the east

As he entered the base and walked through the corridors, he came upon the cafeteria. He placed a coin in the vending machine set into the wall and grabbed himself some food and a soda. He would need it on this long, boring job.

----

Two hours later, Oreem sat in his chair, his legs up on the control board, sifting through the Internet on his handheld computer. The room was poorly-lit, but he could see well enough for his tastes. He was here to monitor the detection equipment. Since there was never anything to be detected, it was perhaps the most boring job in the universe, behind, of course, guard duty. At least with this job you could make some sort of use out of your otherwise useless time. Oreem could never shake the feeling that the only reason he had this job was because the officers didn't like him. Hell, he _knew_ that that was the only reason. The detection equipment didn't even need to be monitored. As soon as something was detected, the computer would automatically send a signal out to the General's comm, where he could simply bring up the display with his projector and figure out everything that was going on from there.

Today, so far, had been your ordinary, boring, night shift monitoring job. Usually he didn't mind this job, for he could just bring his handheld computer and browse through it during his entire shift; not much different than what he did when he wasn't working. Yep, just an ordinary day, dull as ever.

However, today turned out to be not so ordinary. At 4:37 AM, Oreem was startled by the low beeping of a signal coming from the detection screen. The last time a signal of any importance had ever been received from this thing was almost three weeks ago, when a rival rebel force sent a number of ships toward the city. Fortunately, the force was repelled before it could cause any damage to the city itself.

Oreem quickly looked up at the display, and saw a bleep coming from deep in the mountains about 40 miles to the east of Salt Lake City, not far from the small community of Kamas. He focused in on the region to glean information from the signal. What he saw was something that completely shocked him.

The signal detected an unknown organic presence deep in the valley. The display screen said that almost 3,500 creatures were detected in the region, and that organic structures had manifested themselves within it. The entire valley had been polluted by an unknown foreign substance, and vegetation in the region was dying at an unnatural rate.

He quickly recalled something he remembered from history class so many years ago about the ravenous species known as the Zerg that was defeated about 450 years ago and had passed into history as another chapter in the war-ridden history of Humanity. What was known about the war was often skewed by legends and myths, and in some cases it was difficult to determine if certain events had actually happened.

He double-checked and triple-checked the data just to make sure, but each time, the information was the same. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, bewildered, dropping his computer on the dashboard and running his hands through his hair. There was no way this was happening…

"Holy shit…I can't believe it. There's got to be something wrong with this information," he said. After checking through the databases on information about the Zerg, he determined that everything matched up perfectly. The Zerg had returned.

----

General Mason was awakened by the beep of his com-link. He woke up groggily and picked up his com-link. He checked the display to see who was calling him. The name "Oreem Taros" flashed across the screen with the red "URGENT" panel flashing in the corner. _Maybe he finally has something useful to say_, he thought.

"General Mason here," he said groggily. He lifted himself up on one elbow and almost immediately heard the frantic voice from the other end.

"General, there is something here that you definitely have to see. Have you seen the information sent to your com-link yet?" said Taros.

"Hold on, let me check." He accessed the recent information he had received and brought up the display screen containing the information from the signal. The look on his face quickly turned to shock as he realized what they were. "Oh my god, is that…Zerg?"

"Yes sir, it is," he said frantically. "I double-checked and triple-checked the data and there is no evidence to suggest otherwise."

"Where the hell would they have come from?"

"I wouldn't know sir. It makes as little sense to me as it does to you," said Oreem. The General sat up on the edge of his bed and rubbed his chin, pondering the information. This was perhaps the last thing he was expecting. The Zerg had essentially passed into legend…to see this information on his screen now was bewildering. He couldn't believe it.

"We could have a much bigger problem on our hands than the rival rebel groups."

"I agree sir."

"Taros, I need you to get this information out as quickly as possible." He paused and thought about the situation further. "I am assigning you to the Response Team. I need you to help send this information to every police force and organization in the region and tell them that we may not have much time on our hands."

"Wouldn't that cause unnecessary panic, sir?" said Taros.

"As long as the media doesn't find out and release this information, then there's no reason for anybody to panic at the moment. Now, get this information out ASAP."

"Yes, sir, that can be done no problem."

Mason hung up the com-link and quickly geared up to head to the military base. The shock of this information hadn't fully hit him yet. He dropped his com-link on the dresser and rested his head on his elbows and sighed.

"Goddamn it," he whispered to himself. "I can't believe there's more shit to deal with." _And this shit may be bigger than anything else_, he thought.

----

_October 15, 3001, 4:40 AM_

_Military Outpost #11, Uinta Branch, Uinta Mountains_

It was a cool, quiet night high in the Uinta Mountains in the tiny military outpost. Captain Leerus was pouring through the observation maps of the surrounding region when he noticed something odd. The aerial scanner had reported an unknown organic presence in the mountains about 2 miles to the west. He double-checked the data to make sure he was not mistaken before assuming that the information was correct.

He picked up his com-link and called Sergeant Fournier to the command post. In a quick thirty seconds, he walked through the door leading into his office.

"Yes sir?" he said, giving him a firm salute.

"Fournier, come here. What do you make of this?" said the Captain. Fournier looked over Leerus's shoulder at the data he saw on the screen. He saw the words _Unknown organic presence; growing rapidly; vegetation dying _flashing across the screen. He furrowed his brows at this information. He didn't know what to make of it.

"I don't know sir, but it's definitely worth investigating. I would say to call Headquarters and alert them of this, sir," he said.

"Yes, I agree." He paused for a moment. "This is—"

He was cut off by the sound of gunfire and yelling coming from outside. The Captain and Sergeant quickly ran outside and saw about 20 small, dog-sized creatures approaching the base. Rapid laser fire came from the stationary platform gun on the edge of the base, but several more small creatures began to swarm the base. Hissing and growling sounds were heard as the creatures tore up the gun and began ripping the flesh off of the soldier manning it. The Sergeant readied his laser rifle and began rapidly firing on the nearest creatures. The Captain saw one of the creatures leap on top of the command center and charge towards him. He quickly ran in the base and grabbed his laser rifle. A large explosion was heard outside and the power in the base went out. The power generator had been destroyed. The darkness in the narrow hallway was quickly replaced with blinking red emergency lights. He slowly approached the door as he heard more men die. He charged through the door and rapidly fired ahead of him blindly.

It took him a full 10 seconds to realize that he was completely surrounded and that he was the only man remaining alive in the outpost. Several of these creatures began running towards him. He got a glimpse of a tiny, dog-sized figure covered in brown skin with wicked claws protruding from its sides as they converged on him. He vaguely recognized them…where did he recognize them from? _This can't be a coincidence_ was his last thought before he blindly fired off his last shots and heard the creatures converge on him. The last thing he remembered was screaming in pain as his flesh was ripped to shreds.


End file.
